A young woman identified as Chinedu Chukwu, has been arrested by the police.
The woman was arrested for abducting and selling her elder sister’s four-year-old daughter.
According to Punch Metro, the girl, Chinecherem Irechukwu, a pupil of Unity Primary School in Inyi, a community in Oji River Local Government Area of Enugu, was declared missing on December 15, 2016. The police was notified after Chinecherem did not return from school.
Spokesman, Enugu State Police Command, Mr. Ebere Amaraizu, who confirmed the development, said the case was referred to Gender/Anti-Human Trafficking Section of the state Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Department.
The section is headed by Superintendent of Police, Udoka Gloria, and supervised by a Deputy Commissioner of Police, Janet Agbede.
In the course of investigation, it was discovered that Chinedu, the younger sister of Chinecherem’s mother and her boyfriend, Chinonso Osunkwo, travelled down from Anambra State, where they reside, to abduct Chinecherem from her school.
It was further learnt that Chinedu and her boyfriend took Chinecherem to Ihe-Olokoro, a town in Umuahia, Abia State, where the little girl was sold to one Florence Nwokocha.
Florence reportedly paid N350,000 for the four-year old girl.
Following their arrest, Chinedu and her boyfriend led the police to Florence, who was equally arrested.
Chinecherem was subsequently recovered on January 16, 2017.
Amaraizu said the girl was recovered in Aba, Abia State, where she was to be resold by Florence for profit.
Narrating what transpired in the case, Amaraizu said, “On that fateful day, December 15, 2016, Chinedu and her boyfriend, Chinonso, conspired and came in from Anambra State and headed to the school where the little Chinecherem was tricked and whisked away to Umuahia, Abia State, precisely Ihe-Olokoro, where she was allegedly sold to one Florence Nwokocha at the rate of three hundred and fifty thousand naira.
“Police operatives, already armed with intelligence information, nabbed the said Florence Nwokocha, who also assisted the operatives to recover Chinecherem on 16/1/17 from a place where she was kept at Faulks Road, Aba, in Abia State, awaiting a would-be buyer with a fabulous amount of money to make huge profit.”
Amaraizu added that the police were on the trail of an unnamed person, who harboured Chinecherem in Aba.
Chinecherem has been reunited with his parents.
Her mother, Mrs. Irechukwu, while thanking God and expressing appreciation to the police for the recovery of her daughter, said she was shocked that her own sister could mastermind the abduction and sale of her daughter.
“I never believed that my immediate younger sister could do such a thing to me,” the woman said.
Commissioner of Police, Enugu State, Mr. Douglas Agbonleni, who described Chinedu’s action as “man’s inhumanity to man”, commended the operatives of the Enugu State Police Command for recovering the girl.
